


Dandelion Milk

by etorphine



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Horny Teenagers, M/M, Masturbation, Puberty, Underage Sex, Wammy's Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25362877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etorphine/pseuds/etorphine
Summary: "For God–as the Jesuits have said–chooses a myriad of ways to enter into souls: the golden powder, a swan, a bull, a dove, and countless others." For Mello, it was a boy, young and unaware, named Matt.
Relationships: Matt | Mail Jeevas/Mello | Mihael Keehl
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written for [wammy week](https://wammyweek.tumblr.com/) 2020 day 3: "first crush/first love". edited by [honeylogan](http://honeylogan.tumblr.com).

It was a day in late August, sweltering like the last hurrah. Birds chirped and fluttered their wings as the glowing sun beat down on the ground. 

Down the hill that led to the moor, Matt and Mello were sweating. Two little piggies roasting under the sun. Mello lay in the grass on his front, staring up at the runny clouds trickling between the branches and the leaves. Every time he moved, something unglued from his skin.

“It’s so _hot_ ,” Matt mumbled, peeling his shirt from his damp chest. He was sitting beside him, his goggles strung around his neck like a plastic orange medallion. “This is brutal.”

“Bloody heat wave,” Mello muttered in agreement. 

Matt sighed. The smoke off of his cigarette sighed with him, tangling into the rotten air, playing with the children who screamed up the hill-top. They were alone behind the House, in a shady spot under an unfriendly group of big oak trees. It must have been the only cool spot in the whole of Hampshire.

“We only have a few days left of our break, and this is what we get,” Matt continued. “I hate England.”

English summers were unforgivingly humid. Matt handed his cigarette to Mello, perched between two thin fingers, and Mello took it from his hands. Their damp skin stuck with a second of prolonged contact, and parted.

Mello inhaled. The cigarette didn’t help. But the filter was damp where Matt had bitten it, the way that he always did. Spicy tobacco and nicotine lined his mouth with Matt’s spit coagulating in his gums, coated with golden ember.

“I don’t wanna go back to class,” Matt uttered.

If Mello agreed, it would have been a lie. The end of this summer marked the beginning of his schooling as an Elite. A prestigious opportunity that he had longed for since he set foot in the institution, since he’d seen letters like Y and Z try and fail. 

Mello hummed, tonguing the filter. He blew out the smoke, pushing it out from his lungs, and handed the cigarette back over, where the tip smouldered like the ridges of a sandy mountaintop. 

“Have you done all your EP’s?” Matt asked, taking the cigarette effortlessly. He was referring to his Elite Preparations.

Mello smiled, tilting his head to look at the boy. From underneath the glaring sun, peeking through the leaves, the curve of Matt’s jaw looked soft and damp. Mello could count every hair that coated his cheek. Peach fuzz, glowing the way angels’ hair glowed.

“I have, actually,” Mello said, gleaming. “And I’ve read all on my reading list these two weeks, too. Finished my last yesterday night.”

“What book is that?”

“ _Our Lady of the Flowers_.”

“What’s that about?”

Matt blew a trail of smoke from his dry, pink lips. Skin flaked off of his bottom lip, dusted and cherished like a Darling secret. He chewed his lip now, a dog with a bone.

“’s about a man’s fantasies while he’s incarcerated,” Mello answered.

Matt’s pink tongue stuck out from his mouth cheekily, the underside veined and monstrous. “Sexual?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me read it, then.”

Mello shook his head. “I don’t think you’ll like it,” he responded honestly. “It’s not that sexy.”

Not for Matt, anyway. He didn’t like the same things Mello did.

Matt made a humming noise, and Mello shifted as the sun beat over his eyes. He closed them, feeling the sweat collect at the back of his neck, clinging to his skin.

“Well, y’know,” Matt continued, shifting around. The round _o_ of his vowels, softened with a flat, faint North American accent from somewhere Mello had never been. “When you’re an Elite, that means we won’t have any time to hang out anymore.”

It stung, but Mello had prepared for it since they first met. “We’ll hang out,” Mello said.

Matt shuffled again. His sneakers rustled against the dry grass. “Like hell we will,” he responded. “You’ll be studying all day. Class until six. We don’t even have the same supper times.”

“You live beside me, don’t you?”

“Well, you’ll be all pissy. Like how you are before the term exams.” Matt groaned, a rough and angelic sound. “God, I hate you before your exams.”

“If you’d only accepted the invitation to be an Elite, then,” Mello chastised. “You _were_ considered, after all.”

Matt huffed. “I don’t wanna be an Elite. It’s soul-sucking.”

Mello sighed, opening up his eyes. “Then I guess I’ve sold my soul, haven’t I?”

Matt chuckled dryly, leaving the comment open. They fell silent. Mello shifted, and his shirt shifted with him as he looked back to Matt’s curved, hunched back.

Ash rained down between the triangle of Matt’s denim-panted legs as he finished the cigarette. The crumpled butt fell soon after, dropping into the grass and disappearing beside the slope of sparse yellow dandelions, crushed and torn by heavy feet.

Mello could still smell the scent of smoke on his hair when it fell over his face. The scent of an afternoon with Matt, mixed with sweat and sun.

“I’m gonna need to find a girlfriend,” Matt said randomly. “Just so I can have someone else to hang out with. Y’think I can get with any girls here this year?”

Mello shrugged. He’d long since sanded down the edges of words like that. They no longer pricked — just prodded, like the blunt end of a knife. 

“Sure,” Mello said airily. A dare, even. “You can if you try.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah…” he trailed off, and then took a breath. “Do you like any girls right now?”

Mello kept his head down when he answered, feeling a wave of warmth wash over him. “Not really.”

Matt paused. Birds trilled. Beside him, Mello heard the thick rip of something plucked from earth. 

“What about boys?”

Mello shifted again, the sweat on his skin sinking into his bones. His nerves rattled as he breathed in slowly, out slowly. There’d been enough whispers in the walls of the House in the past few years, and it wasn’t something he divulged, nor wished to. 

It was between him and God. God was unhappy enough about it already.

The heat ground on. Mello didn’t say anything.

“Well,” Matt mumbled, quickly. In the way he did when he sensed he said too much. “You’re good-looking. You’d get any girl you wanted.”

Mello exhaled a breath that he’d tried not to hold, humming noncommittally.

“Well, I’ve got Advanced Higher Maths with Bool in the fall,” Matt rambled. “A lot of the hottest girls are gonna be in that class.”

Mello looked up through his hair as the moment passed them by. Matt was picking at the bright yellow petals, showering them all over his sneakers. 

Mello asked, “Like who?”

“Betty, Carmina, and Laurel.” Matt paused. “Well, and Julia. Fuckin’ A.”

“Don’t you like Julia?”

“Yeah, when she isn’t talking. But when she is,” Matt cleared his throat, pitching up his voice and putting on a worn English drawl, “Oh, _sir_ , pick me! I’m the third best in maths but I have a stick up me arse!”

Mello snorted, pushing himself on his elbows. He wiped the sweat off his neck with the back of his hand, and touched the earth with his fingers. Soft and warm, baked by the muggy sun. 

“She’s not all that bad,” he commented.

“Well, yeah. At least she’s got massive tits.”

Mello shook his head, huffing a laugh. “Perv.”

“It’s normal,” Matt responded, plucking a blade of grass. He rubbed his fingers clear of dandelion milk, and lined it between his thumbs like in prayer, opening a diamond-shaped slit between his hands. He pursed his lips, kissing his knuckles, and blew. 

The grass blade whistled brokenly, puncturing the birds in the air like an arrow.

“Anyway, you’re gonna see Near every day for the next five years,” Matt said, ungluing his lips from his hands. He adjusted the grass blade, straightening it between his thumbs, and trilled again. The whistle was loud: _fweeeeeep_. “So you’ll be working together all the time, on projects or whatever.” 

Matt put on another English accent, revelling in his impressions. “‘Well, Near’s not so bad, _ackshually_! I like him now, I do!’”

Mello rolled his eyes and scoffed, looking away. “Don’t remind me.”

“You’ll eat with Near for every meal,” Matt continued, whistling again. “You’re gonna feed him his cauliflower.”

“I will not.”

“You’re gonna end up becoming best friends.”

“We will not,” Mello repeated, glaring. 

“You know what you’re like. You go from hating someone to saying they’re _brilliant_ in, like, a week.” Matt cackled. “Skipping a grade, fast-tracking Elite. So bloody _brilliant_ , that little sheep is.”

“Shut _up_ , Matt.”

“In the Common Room,” Matt continued, shuddering with laughter, “I’m gonna find you next year after not seeing you for three months. Sitting by a dice tower. I’ll be, like, ‘Mello, hey, how’re you doing?’ And you’ll say—“

“Shut up!” Mello growled, pushing himself up. Matt shrunk as Mello tried to punch him, rolling away.

“You’ll be all,” Matt laughed, pitching up his voice as he stood up shakily, bracing himself to run, “’Oh, Near said he’ll teach me about dice towers. He’s so cool! Did you _know_ —‘“

Mello cut Matt off with a fist. Matt dodged and escaped, leaving Mello to pull himself off of his scraped knees and barrel after him, running down the hill and into the grass.

“You’re so cool, Near!” Matt shouted gallantly, pumping his skinny arms and legs, white as bone under his army shorts. “Mello wants Near to—”

They galloped out of the oak tree’s shade, back into the muggy sun. The air was tight and choking as their sneakers shuffled over untrimmed grass, and Mello launched himself at Matt’s back, pulling him down. 

His hands fisted the damp fabric of Matt’s shirt as they hit the earth in a mess of limbs and growls, rolling deeper into tickling blades of green and white.

Matt was still laughing as his face hit the dirt, his back rumbling against Mello’s legs. “You know I’m right,” Matt teased, squirming underneath him. “Near, please—“

Mello slapped his hand over Matt’s mouth, holding in his words with a muffled shout. Matt’s hot breath tangled against the sweat with his palm, condensing into droplets of Matt’s air, and Matt squirmed harder, trying to get out of Mello’s grip with more sounds of dissent.

Mello’s fingertips were white, pushing into Matt’s soft cheeks, brushing up against his freckles like Mello could rub them off if he tried. Matt kicked as Mello held his knees tight on the earth, feeling Matt struggling underneath him, wriggling against his belly like a trapped prey.

Matt’s neck was hot and sweaty, sparkling in the bright sun.

Mello’s palm felt warm and wet. He recoiled, looking down at his shining, glistening palm, slick with Matt’s saliva. The shock weakened him and Matt pulled out from underneath him, rustling on the grass, his white ankle-socks dirtying against the loose earth.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Mello growled. He wiped his face aggressively, smearing the remnant’s of Matt’s saliva and his sweat on his cheek. “I’ll kill you, you dickhead!”

Matt was already up the hill as Mello ran after him, past the slope and back into the House’s playgrounds, where everybody could see them if they looked. They shuffled through the soccer field and emerged onto the track, in plain sight of the Common Room windows. 

Matt was losing steam when Mello grabbed him again by the back of his collar, yanking him back and shoving him onto the tarmac. 

Matt hit the ground face-up with a muffled thump, goggles clattering around. Mello tackled him, trapping him under his weight. 

Matt was panting, red in the face, sweat beading down his warm forehead and mottling his hair dark brown. His chest heaved under his thin striped shirt, two small nipples rising and falling, peeking shyly underneath the cotton.

Mello pushed him down by the shoulders, squashing him with his weight. Leaning closer, he could smell the sweat and the smoke from Matt’s hair, and the comforting, soft scent of Matt’s skin. The dribble of his spit, coating his lower lip from excitement.

“Stop!” Matt wriggled, squeezing his eyes shut as he opened his mouth big and red and wide. His arms were trapped under Mello’s hands, pushing against him. “Let me go!”

“I’m going to fucking murder you,” Mello gritted, shoving his warm shoulders down harder, pressing his hips down tighter against Matt’s lower legs. Matt gasped, a punchy sound of air hitting the back of his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut suddenly, wrinkling his nose.

Mello felt it belatedly, warmth between his legs, just as Matt’s eyes flew open again, terror cascading down his features like falling sand. 

The moment sloshed around them like dirty water. Matt’s spit was shining, his eyes going blank. Mello let go first, out of mercy or fear he wasn’t sure, and he rolled away and tumbled onto the heated tarmac. 

He glanced back and saw that Matt had hurriedly sat himself up, hunching over himself. 

Mello breathed heavily against the track, smelling the plasticky smell under his cheeks, too hot to lie on, but he couldn’t peel himself away from it. His heart was hammering. He closed his eyes, swallowing his spit loudly. 

Side by side, he listened as Matt’s breaths scissored loudly with his, just slightly off-rhythm. Mello opened his eyes again to stare sideways to the sideways House, big and bricky ahead of him. He turned to the sky, the sun was dipping near the horizon, brimming over the fuzzy grass blades. 

He’d felt Matt’s...

“Let’s get back,” tumbled like pebbles from Matt’s panting breaths, interrupting his thoughts. “Supper’s soon.”

Mello nodded, pushing himself off the tarmac to sit, the soft spongy earth underneath his palms. He wiped his cheek, rough and patterned after the grains of the track, embedded in his face like he’d been branded. 

Matt hoisted himself up beside Mello with a boyish _huh_ , dusting off his army shorts, stained greener from the grass. In one swift motion, he yanked his shirt over his head, revealing skin so bright that Mello had to close his eyes for a moment before forcing them back open. 

Matt had gotten wider since he’d last seen his skin — wiry, bony shoulders, and shoulder blades that budded like unformed wings. Taut and so blissfully unaware. He would have never taken his shirt off in front of Mello if he’d known. 

Matt spun around, like he’d heard his name being called, and then heard a little bit too much. A chill ran down Mello’s spine, staring back at Matt, scared for a moment that he’d accidentally said something aloud.

But Matt was only holding out a hand, his shirt rolled into a ball by his hip. Acting like nothing had been amiss.

“C’mon.”

Mello took Matt’s wet, rough palm, glancing down to his trousers one last time. But his shorts were loose and his belly was too bright, and Mello couldn’t see anything as Matt pulled him back up to his feet. Too bad.

“You gonna wash my shirt again?” Matt asked, handing his striped shirt over, wiping his face.

Mello looked back over, brushing away his hair from his face, sticking to his sweat. His bangs were all but gone now, sticking up like antennae. He could tell from the way their shadows painted themselves on the tarmac behind them.

“Yeah, I will,” Mello said, flattening his bangs out as he took the shirt. He held it to himself and grabbed his shoes, slipping them off and turning them over. 

Underneath his bare feet, the ground was warm and dusty. Rocks fell, raining onto the grass below, rejoining the earth from its sojourn away under Mello’s soles.

“We’re gonna have to shower soon or else Roger'll smell cigarettes at supper.” Matt sighed, stretching. A small dust of chest hairs curled between his two pink nipples. Mello never noticed them there before. “I need a cold fuckin’ shower.”

Mello emptied his other shoe. “You can go first, then.”

Matt blinked, crossing his arms. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

Mello elected to keep his shoes off, pinching them in his hand as they walked from the grass back to the House.

* * *

In the evening, clouds gathered in the absence of sun. Night only got hotter, humid and sticky without proper air conditioning. Each room was fitted with a fan; Mello’s was small and feeble, and the window offered no solace.

Something shifted today. Something Mello couldn’t name. He rolled it around on his tongue, seeking guidance. 

At lights-out, Mello sat on his tiny bed, re-reading _Our Lady of the Flowers_ underneath the torch. The clock ticked on mournfully behind him, loud only at night.

The fuzzy black print shivered like ants under the flickering light as the fan’s wind blew against it slovenly, and Mello could only fan himself with his measly hand as he read the sacred passage that he’d underlined with a fountain pen, marked with a dog-eared page.

_For God–as the Jesuits have said–chooses a myriad of ways to enter into souls: the golden powder, a swan, a bull, a dove, and countless others._

For Mello, it was a boy, young and unaware, named Matt.

It had taken years to realize that loving Matt was not a sin. Not selfishly, like he was too stubborn to let go of his temptations. And not without years of reflecting, in the House’s chapel and in the darkness of his room while he prayed. 

Mello had been cursed with a love for boys since he could remember. In Ettal, behind the abbey, he’d kissed a young redheaded boy. Seeing Matt at the House at first felt like a cruel joke, back when he was young and afraid.

But God worked in ways that Mello couldn’t fully understand. All that Mello knew was that in the heat of the summer sun, underneath the oak tree, Mello felt, like he had countless times before in his young life, a beautiful burning of his chest, caged like Jesus’ Sacred Heart. 

Matt was God’s Love. God’s gift. 

In exchange, Melo’s vocation was to spread God’s love and justice when he became L. If Matt served as temptation to his path, then Mello would never succumb.

If the days leading to the rigid, five-year program were the only days he had left with Matt, then he wanted all of them to be as blissful and sweet as the last.

Mello closed his book as the fan worked quietly, turning off the torch. He tucked the paperback underneath his bed, inside a cardboard box of all the other books he’d read that had narrated his story in swathes of the past. 

Wilde, Beckford, even Foucault. Mello knew he was not alone. But in the tight walls of the House, where ears lined every corner, he knew that he had to keep to himself.

He fell back onto the soft mattress, listening to the sound of crickets out of his opened window, chirping peacefully away in the dense forest behind the House. It was quiet. One of his last summer nights. 

The only people in the hallways were the evening caretakers, making sure that everybody was where they were supposed to be. His door was locked, and it was too late for any more nightly intrusions.

Mello folded his blankets over his naked lower half, even with the heat. His bed smelled like Matt.

Under his pillow he kept Matt’s shirt, and he reached under, revealing a clandestine secret in thin blue stripes. The shirt was damp after an evening of sweating. Grassy and flecked with smudges of dirt. 

Mello would wash it in the morning, and blame the humidity that it didn’t dry. 

This shirt was Matt. The Matt that existed in his mind, in small glances and secret stolen secrets. Draping the shirt over his head, casing him in pure darkness, surrounding him completely. 

This Matt belonged to him, tickling his bare shoulders, stiff and hazy against his face. 

Mello inhaled, pulling Matt’s smoke and skin into his nostrils, into his lungs, into his bloodstream and pumped through his heart. 

His nightly ritual. His skin was already prickling. He was growing hard under the itchy blankets. 

In the dark, Mello saw Matt, warm like he was earlier in the afternoon.

Underneath him on the tarmac, skin shining with sweat, face pink and splotchy over the familiar roadmap of his freckles. The one on the side of his nose, bigger than the rest of them like a squashed bug that never could get away. Matt had his eyes closed. His pink, bitten, scabby mouth. 

The hard mound underneath Mello’s tailbone, shivering with delight and terror.

Mello’s hand moved under the blankets, taking hold of himself. Past the short, prickly hairs that he’d let grow out, he wrapped his fingers around the base. He was warm and sticky already.

The film reel stretched over his mind’s eye was bright like the day. He was sitting on Matt, straddling his hips on the track field. Matt’s hardness was under him, and he felt it as he rocked into his fist. 

Matt was gasping, rough and boyish. Peach fuzz, shining in the sunlight as he turned his head to the side. He was naked. The light dust of merlot hair on Matt’s chest, standing proud and lonely, waiting for somebody to notice them between two pert, pink nipples. 

Mello inhaled, fisting under the bedsheets, listening to the rustling of the fabric and the quiet thrum of his heart. Matt’s scent wrapped around him like a robe, fitting against his skin carefully. The heat under the shirt made his face sweat. He thought to the way their breaths chased one another on the tarmac. 

The sound of he and Matt breathing, slightly out of unison.

Mello stroked faster. His bed groaned. A sweet nougat of nectarine leaked inside of his hips, funnelling into his groin. The curve of Matt’s neck, skin so thin and pale that his veins could be read underneath them. Green and blue. His sweat was salty, and ashy with the cigarette smoke. Matt’s saliva was warm and wet. All over Mello’s hand.

Mello snaked his hand underneath Matt’s shirt and kissed his palm. They were kissing one another now. Tongue to tongue. Matt’s pink, wide tongue, sloppy and wet. Mello was straining underneath the sheets, and the honey in his groin was painful. He let out a small grunt by accident. He took it back and put it in Matt’s mouth, letting him swallow it.

Against the tarmac, under the spoiling sun. Matt was groaning, hissing, his eyes closed tight, wrinkling his nose and his squashed-bug freckle with it. No more bugs.

Mello’s hardness was sweating, too, slick and loud in the night. His hair was growing wet on his forehead. He remembered his favourite memory, when they were younger. 

At a camping trip in Sopley, Matt took down his denim jeans behind a bush. Nobody was around them. The sun was shining bright, glimmering over the lake in the corner of his eye. Matt’s pants were dropped to his feet, pooling around his ankles.

He wasn’t hard then, like he was this afternoon. But Mello saw the curve of his penis, darker than Mello had expected, like a log held between his legs. 

He was big. Big enough that Mello needed to look away, or else he was afraid that everybody would find out.

Mello’s hand sped up underneath the fabric, the mattress loud enough to be worrisome. His toes curled. His legs were growing weak, and he licked his palm again, catching whatever was left of Matt’s saliva. He was out of breath. He couldn’t stop now.

Matt’s scent, cigarette smoke and grass. Matt’s hardness, under his loose cargo shorts, freed from the waistband, standing proud against his slender stomach; his coin-slot belly button on his thin, rickety navel. Matt, with the sweet pants and the rough gasp that Mello had heard today. Replaying it over and over again. _Gasp._ Repeat. _Gasp_. Repeat. _Gasp. Gasp. Gasp._

The sweet, harsh feeling rocked through his hips, down his spine. Mello let out a shuddering exhale against Matt’s shirt as he came under the blanket, the bed falling quiet underneath. 

The clock ticked on as he felt it drip like a sundae made of lava instead of cream, down his hands and smearing against his legs. He’d wash it tomorrow with Matt’s shirt, too.

Mello sighed, kicking his blankets away from his body and lifting the shirt from his head, tossing it aside. 

The air was musty in his room. Mello pulled his right hand from his hips and held it in front of his face, staring at it curiously. His fingers were spread apart, come strung between his knuckles like a spider’s web. 

Mello licked his hand, holding the taste of his fluid in his mouth. Like keeping the host resting on his tongue, he dared not swallow. 

He closed his eyes, and thought about the milk from the stem of the dandelion, spread thin between Matt’s fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

Clouds baked the sky. The next afternoon was hotter and more humid than the last. 

Matt had escaped to Mello’s room, where it was slightly less humid — as he did most afternoons. They were sitting placidly on Mello’s bed, close enough that his weak fan could reach both of them, blowing away their sweat and secrets. 

It swivelled from side to side, catching first Mello with a toss of his blonde hair, and then Matt, rustling nothing. He was topless again.

God was kind.

Together, away from hungry gazes and nosy mouths, Matt wasn’t afraid to touch him, even with the heat of the afternoon. The boy was curled against Mello like a younger brother, his merlot head of hair tucked between the crook of his shoulder and his neck.

Mello allowed it, shifting his head slightly as he tugged a shiny page of his textbook. _Introduction to Criminal Psychology_. He’d read it before, and the words didn’t sink in this time. Instead, Mello stared at words like _forensics_ and _cognition_ and _psychological profiles,_ while the rest of him absorbed Matt’s scent and his warmth. 

The tip of Matt’s right knee was pressed up against him like they were kissing softly, sweat collecting in the rivet where their skin met. Matt’s knees were bruised and purpling. Mello’s, scabby and scraped. Their arms were sticking to each other, fast friends. 

The House was quiet today with Roger and the children out for an end-of-the-summer field trip to New Forest Park. Without the screams and laughter of children in the fields, Mello could believe that the world ended outside of the four walls that caged them both inside.

Mello peeled his shirt away from his skin, fanning himself quietly. Beside him, the rubbery buttons of Matt’s video games squelched. Their breaths fell together, in sync for once. Mello glanced over at Matt’s trousers again, but all he saw was the stitching of his fly, camouflage cargo raised like a military tent in the middle of Afghanistan. 

Same shorts as yesterday. It must have still had particles of Mello’s hips, rolled into the fibres between Matt’s thighs.

Mello exhaled shallowly, flipping the page he wasn’t reading. The fan blew against them, flickering the corner of the page, and Mello could smell another burst of Matt’s scent, clear of smoke. He didn’t want to move. 

He hoped that this would stretch into eternity in Heaven. Mello couldn’t think of a better place in the universe than pressed against Matt’s skin in the sticky summer afternoon.

The video game played a triumphant little tune. Matt pressed a few buttons, and the screen darkened. He unglued himself from Mello’s side, leaving him cold and empty alone.

All good things came to an end, Mello supposed. He withheld a sigh. The last ten minutes — that was enough for today; he’d taken all he needed.

God was kind.

Matt shuffled off the bed, boxsprings creaking as he moved away. Mello fitted his finger into the spine of the textbook, stealing glances to the dimples on Matt’s lower back, at the shy bones that ridged his skin like sand dunes in the desert. Flecked with small patches of dirty freckles, where flowers could grow.

Matt grabbed ahold of Mello’s fan, and pushed his face near the grate. The wind blew against Matt’s hair, caressing it softly. Lucky fan.

“It’s so hot,” Matt mumbled sullenly. “I can’t fucking focus.”

“Me neither,” Mello said. The hard-cover book was stuck to his calves. He pulled it off, and felt like it’d removed a layer of his epidermis with it. “I wish this heat wave would end.”

“This sucks,” Matt agreed, tossing his head back. The fan’s wind blew against his bare neck, licking his sweat clean. “Why isn’t this stupid place air-conditioned?”

“They said they’d install an air con system last summer.”

“Well, they didn’t,” Matt grumbled, turning around. “Aren’t you hot?”

Mello glanced down self-consciously. His t-shirt was stuck to him uncomfortably, sucking up all of his skin. “A little.”

“You should take it off,” Matt said. “No one’s gonna see, anyway.”

Mello nodded dumbly, peeling his shirt away from his skin. Only because Matt said so.

Mello flung his damp shirt onto the end of the bed. His rosary beads felt warm and heavy against his bare skin. 

“Better?” Matt asked.

Mello nodded, brushing his hair from his face, stuck to the nape of his neck.

“You should tie up your hair, too,” Matt suggested, standing up from his spot on the creaky floor, leaving the fan alone. “Do you have a rubber band?”

Mello shrugged, pointing blindly to his desk. “Somewhere there.”

Matt walked over, his footsteps loud and sticky over the wood as he stood at Mello’s desk. Beside him, his striped blue-and-white shirt lay on Mello’s desk chair, drying after Mello had used him up last night.

Matt had no idea. Mello swallowed his secret delight.

Matt swept aside Mello’s papers, his old practice tests; lifting corners and sheets until he found a small red rubber band. Mello didn’t remember where it came from. It may have held together a Bristol board project from last year. Now, it was stretched over Matt’s skinny fingers, rolled onto his wrist.

Mello watched as he approached him, shifting his textbook off from his knees and closing it on the bed. He shifted forward, the bed protesting, and held out his hand for the band. 

Matt shook his head, brushing against his knee as he climbed beside him onto the bed. He crawled behind Mello, and Mello’s shoulders grew cold and weary as he realized what was about to happen.

Matt’s hands brushed against his neck, feathery and light. He carded his fingers through his hair messily, pulling the strands away from Mello’s face. 

“Whenever it was summer,” Matt spoke from behind him, leaning from side to side as his bed creaked, “My mum tied up her hair. I thought it was pretty, but she said she only did it when it was hot.”

Mello hummed, his hands placed awkwardly in his lap. He stared ahead at the desk and the wall before him. At the ticking clock, a mere ten minutes away from suppertime. 

“You never tie up your hair?” Matt asked, the band snapping in Mello’s ear. Matt’s hands were tender, stroking his hair back into a tight bristle-brush. 

“No.” Mello winced, feeling strands of his hair tugged out of his scalp as Matt twisted the band around his hair. “I don’t really like it.”

“I can braid, too,” Matt added. The rubber snapped, holding Mello’s hair into place, and Matt drifted away, widening the crackling distance between them. “But that might make you look kinda girly.”

“It’s fine,” Mello said, reaching behind to brush his ponytail. It was tight. Matt had left a few hairs still dangling by his face, but Mello didn’t really care. “Thanks.”

Matt climbed back onto the bed to sit beside him. “Lemme see.”

Mello turned to him, facing Matt head-on. Matt’s eyes lingered above Mello’s face, tracing his work with a note of pride, darting around and letting Mello see all the red little strings inside his sclera.

“You still look kinda girly,” Matt muttered, frowning like it was his fault. “Should I fix it?”

Mello shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Matt smiled crookedly, nodding. “OK,” he said. “That’s cool.”

They fell silent. Mello looked away to the window, training his eyes on a bird that swung by, cawing in the heat. Even without looking, his sweat measured the distance between all the parts that set their bodies away from one another. 

The fan whirred listlessly, and the clock suddenly sounded loud, even though Mello never heard it in the afternoon. Neither of them were touching now. 

Mello wished they were.

In a minute Mello’s prayers were answered — Matt closed the space between them again, resting his cheek against Mello’s shoulder. Leaning on him, skin to glowing skin, even though it was hot enough for sweat to drench the both of their backs into a monsoon.

Matt threw a hand against Mello’s thigh, radiating with the heat of a fiery poker. Mello took a small breath and pulled him closer, as friends were ought to do. Taking a chance to touch Matt’s freckly, warm arms, brushing against the sweat on his skin.

It felt nice. Warm. Sweet and holy. 

An eternity in this moment. 

Matt’s head dipped. His warm, bitten lips brushed against Mello’s shoulder, and Mello’s breath hitched, mind going blank.

Warm became cold. Cold became warm. 

Mello couldn’t move. 

Matt’s lips puckered against Mello’s shoulder, a baby sucking his thumb. Mello wanted to ask what Matt was doing, but he couldn’t make a sound. He didn’t want to draw attention to it, lest break the moment between them, tangy and viscous as it flowed. 

Matt’s lips became tongue, wet and glistening, just like yesterday evening, with his mouth to Mello’s palm. He was licking Mello’s sweat like a cat would, cleaning off his germs, his nose pressed against his upper arm and letting out small bursts of warm steam. The room was quiet and Mello felt like they were all alone. 

Mello breathed out, trembling. What was Matt thinking?

Mello shifted; the first movement since Matt pressed his lips to his skin, and Matt took it as permission. He leaned in closer, the bed creaking under them. His lips brushed against Mello’s neck, sending sharp shocks up Mello’s face, needling his nerves. His legs swung over Mello’s knee, sitting on his lap. 

He was warm. Rubbing back and forth. Mello placed his hands on Matt’s shoulders, gingerly. The air tightened into a ripe knot as Matt pressed himself deeper against Mello’s body, their limbs slotting together, missing puzzle pieces. They molded and shifted into one, Matt’s heat travelling to Mello’s thigh, a soft exhale of pleasure falling into Mello’s ear.

Mello let out a shaky sigh as he peeked down, trying to see Matt’s trousers. Could he touch him? Was it okay to touch— 

The supper bell screeched.

Matt sprung away in shock, his head knocking into Mello’s. Their skulls crashed like two sides of the metronome, and Mello clutched his temple, hissing as Matt groaned.

“Ugh,” Matt said, holding his forehead on the other end of the bed. “Fuck, sorry…”

Mello grunted, looking away, his head ringing. His heart was loud in his chest, thumping with resolution and anger for the God forsaken supper bell.

Mello looked away, loosening his ponytail and slumping, rubbing the sore spot on his head. His groin was pulsating against his hips, furious that it’d been abandoned so soon. The moment ended as suddenly as it began, and Mello felt the warmth fading from all around him.

The bell tolled again, chastising them. 

“Supper already,” he heard Matt mumble, standing up from his bed with a lonely, loud creak. “Had no idea it was already that late.”

Mello stared at his feet, soles pressed toward one another stickily, his pulse thumping in his ears. 

Why did Matt kiss him like that? Was he similar to Mello — in so that he craved other boys? 

Mello swallowed the thought. Impossible. Matt was perfect. Surely it was an—accident?

“You wanna, um,” Matt squeaked, standing beside the bed. He cleared his throat. “Get up?”

Mello looked up to Matt, his gaming console clutched in his hand. He’d put on the shirt he had on yesterday — even though it was still damp from the humidity, and surely hadn’t dried. His red shirt remained on the ground, crumpled by his bedpost like a virgin who’d been used and abandoned.

Matt’s intimacy seemed gone with the bell toll, hastily shoved under the bed like Mello’s sacred texts. His trousers were still loose — but he didn’t seem like he liked it as much as Mello did.

Mello’s heart grew cold, despite knowing he should have been thankful. 

“Yeah,” Mello forced out of his throat, shifting off the bed. “Sure.”

Mello grabbed his shirt from the bed, shrugging it over his head. It felt horrid on his damp skin. 

* * *

The kids had returned from their trip by suppertime, and the dining hall was bursting. Livelier than it usually was after a muggy day out to New Forest Park. Matt and Mello sat in their corner where they usually found themselves, in a table full of upper-year Elites and intermediates.

The fan spun quietly above them as they ate. They had chicken kiev. A side of roast veggies. Mello wasn’t hungry, and he still couldn’t get Matt’s warmth out of his head, the ghost of his tongue and lips on his blessed neck and shoulders. How their bodies slotted together in a harmony Mello never knew they had. 

It felt as if Mello had taken an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and now, he saw all that he didn’t know before. He wanted to bang the tables and scream, _Come back. Come back. Tell me we can have this._

But Mello knew better than to expect much more. He ate his carrots quietly, mourning something he never knew existed in the first place. The muggy heat in the dining hall made him feel ill, like he was sweating out a fever.

“Hey,” Matt said, leaning close, a kiev stuck through his fork. Mello looked up, but it hurt to look at his shiny, sweaty face. “Look at that.”

“What?”

“By the window.”

Mello looked over reluctantly. Under the window sat a rowdy group of girls: intermediates, all of whom were in classes with them last spring. Betty, Brittany, Linda, and some other girl he didn’t remember the name of.

Mello looked back at Matt, who was staring at them with an opened mouth. He saw lust in Matt’s eyes, and almost didn’t want to ask any more. 

They made eye contact. “Betty’s wearing a tank top,” Matt explained.

Mello sneered. “So?”

“Her tits look _huge_ ,” Matt said, raising his eyebrows. “Don’t they?”

“Hm,” Mello responded, poking another carrot. He stomach flipped.

“She’s so hot,” Matt commented. “She grew a lot this summer.”

“Yeah,” Mello mumbled, grinding his carrot into mush.

Matt fell silent. His hands drummed the sides of the wooden dining table, flitting back and forth in Mello’s peripheral vision. Mello didn’t bother to look up. It made him feel dizzy.

Mello stabbed another carrot, mashing it against his plate. He heard Matt chewing slowly across from him, staring at him with some emotion that Mello didn’t care to check.

“Hey,” Matt said, softly, swallowing a mouthful of food. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Mello said, short. “Feel a bit ill.”

Matt sounded concerned. “Are you okay?”

Mello shrugged. It didn’t matter. The dining hall was hot, and Mello wanted to back up to his room, take a shower, and go to bed with his shame. 

“Yeah,” he said, standing up with his tray. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Wait.”

Mello sniffed, looking back at Matt. He was staring up at him, eyes wide and puppy-like, his lips pulled into a neither-pout-nor-frown, but somewhere in between. Apologetic, maybe.

“Can I come over again tomorrow?”

The loudness of the dining hall funnelled into a tunnel of silence, quiet enough to hear the drop of a thumb-tack. The murky haze of dread and anger lightened to a misty, glowing horizon. 

“If not, it’s okay,” Matt added. 

“I’ll see,” Mello said, carefully. He saw that Matt registered it, and turned around to leave.


	3. Chapter 3

The heat continued into the following afternoon. Bloated clouds hung densely over the sky, bruised grey and pregnant with rain that refused to arrive. 

Mello’s sickness faded with a shower last night. Today, he felt tired, but fine.

It was three in the afternoon, but the skies made it seem like it was already evening. Mello resorted to turning on his lamps. His room was an open oven of tangerine and mustard, and his sheets felt damp underneath his legs. The fan was an afterthought — it didn’t make much of a difference, even as it spun bravely at the bed.

Matt was beside him. Playing a video game.

Last night, something broke in between them. Mello had tasted forbidden fruit. But today, in the bloated heat, things seemed worse off than they ever were. They’d barely spoken at all the whole day; quiet words of no substance, or comments that Mello had already forgotten by the hour was up. 

Mello’s lacklustre anticipation had since faded into dread. The clock ticked on between them, and Matt’s buttons squeaked off-beat. 

He wished he didn’t have to be so greedy. Before, a quiet afternoon was all it took to go to Heaven.

Now, he wanted something else. Whatever it was.

Mello had been staring at his textbook for what seemed like hours. No words stuck when the only thing that felt adhesive was in the air, in the distance between the two of them. Crackling like radio static, louder than anything else in the room, second to Mello’s heartbeat that sped in waves whenever he thought about the afternoon before. Matt’s heat, his tongue, his lips, against his shoulders.

 _Please, I want to do it again_.

Mello was afraid to open his mouth, because his desperation would come tumbling along out of it. 

Matt seemed nonplussed.

The first movement came a few minutes later, as Matt turned off his video game again, sighing deeply in a way that hollowed out his lungs, hissing like an old tomb broken open. Mello tried not to look up. He didn’t want to seem like anything was amiss.

Matt cleared his throat, putting his video game away. Then, as he did every day:

“It’s so hot.”

Mello hummed. That wasn’t enough.

Matt swallowed audibly, putting his video game away on the ground. It clattered noisily, and Matt stretched, tugging his shirt over his head. Today, a black t-shirt with a faded graphic on the front, etched with age marks. It tumbled onto the floor, unnoticed in its plight, and Mello curled the edge of the page in his finger, his heart picking up at the sheer possibility of what might unfold.

“Are you feeling okay?” Matt asked.

Mello nodded.

“How much have you read today?”

Mello looked up, finally, and turned his head. Matt was sitting with his back to Mello’s bedpost, the cross hanging over him like he’d been marked. He looked relaxed — down to his toes and his cargo pants, glistening with a sheen of sweat that oozed like yellow slime. 

“Two chapters,” Mello answered.

Matt raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Wow, that’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” Mello said, closing his textbook and mimicking Matt’s stretch. “I’m tired of it.”

Matt laughed. “I’m tired of my game, too.”

The air stalled. They stared at each other like they were waiting for the next line to the script, but had forgotten it. Matt shook his hair childishly, rubbing his nose. 

“You want me to tie up your hair again?” he asked suddenly.

Mello nodded, placing his textbook on the bedspread. The fog of dread cleared ever-so-slightly as Mello spoke. “Yeah.”

Matt grinned and swung himself off the bed with another box-spring creak. He walked to Mello’s desk again, pilfering another rubber band from somewhere that Mello didn’t recall. 

“I wanna braid it today,” Matt said, turning back around. His shoulders caught the room’s shadows. Two white collarbones glowed, sprinkled with a dash of small freckles. “Can I?”

Mello nodded again, shifting. “Just don’t pull my hair,” he complained. “Like last time.”

“Okay, okay.”

Mello rolled his eyes, scoffing. None of them touched when Matt climbed past, even as the bed creaked and Matt sat behind him. A droplet of dread spilled into Mello’s chest that he’d misread all the signals when Matt’s fingers moved into Mello’s head, against his neck. 

They were shockingly cold. Clammy. Mello flinched instinctively.

“Your hair’s really soft,” Matt said, paying no mind to Mello’s indecision as he ran his cold fingers over Mello’s hair, fumbling a bit. “Way softer than mine.”

Mello grunted, staring at the clock again as it ticked. The supper bell wasn’t for another two hours, which meant that they had the afternoon on their own.

The anticipation made the room even hotter. Mello broke out into a sweat.

“I bet a lot of girls would be jealous,” Matt commented.

Mello shrugged. He didn’t care what girls thought.

“Have you had long hair even before coming here?”

Mello wrung his fingers in his lap, staring at the faceless clock. He felt like he was wearing too much clothes. He could feel Matt’s elbows against his shoulders, and he mourned that they weren’t skin-to-skin.

“My mum liked my hair long,” Mello said dispassionately. A memory of a woman he barely knew. 

“You’ve had this haircut all your life?” Matt asked conversationally, brushing a hair away from Mello’s ear. He was less careless today. He felt like he was copying what hairstylists did, talking to their customers in the chair. 

Mello shivered unconsciously as his fingers ghosted his neck, ticklish and strangely close. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to change it.”

“I like it,” Matt complimented gently.

“And?” Mello asked, haughty, even if the compliment made his heart feel warm. 

“Well, you should keep it.”

They fell silent again. Matt’s hands moved away from his head, pulling his hair at the tips. Mello couldn’t feel him anymore until the rubber band snapped again, popping loudly as Mello’s hair started to tug. 

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.” Matt looped a few more times, and let go. “It’s done.”

Matt sat back down, curling away from him, and Mello felt the back of his head blindly with his hand. A thick braid twisted down to his neck, and then ended abruptly, fanning out to a sharp tail. 

Mello pulled back, nodding. “Thanks.”

The contact ended.

It had been two minutes at most.

Mello bit his tongue, shaking his head inwardly. Stupid. He didn’t know what else he was expecting. Last night had been a mistake, buried under the soil to rot in a cemetery inside their brains. The lamp’s orange glow felt like it was taunting him. So did the distance between them, widening into the Red Sea. 

Mello’s sweat clung to his neck, matting down his shirt disgustingly. He could feel Jesus’ disappointed stare to his side, and he didn’t want to say anything else.

This was all there was going to be. 

Mello should have been grateful.

His bed creaked again, signalling Matt’s descent. Mello was expecting him to reappear in his vision, walking somewhere else, getting farther away from him, but suddenly, his whole back felt warm. 

There was a pressure against his skin. Two arms — Matt’s arms — draped over Mello’s shoulders, holding hands over Mello’s speeding heart. It was a hug or something similar. Mello felt warm and cold, panicked and pained.

They didn’t exchange a word at all as Matt’s breaths fell over his exposed neck, his nose tucking into Mello’s hair. 

A second later, Matt’s lips glued themselves to the side of Mello’s neck. Mello’s brain went silent. His ears popped and started ringing.

Matt’s mouth moved loudly, sweet and popping with his saliva as he moved up Mello’s neck to his ear. Mello’s body was frozen, but his nerves came alive under his skin. Everywhere Matt touched felt like it was whirring to life, melting and spinning. 

Mello closed his eyes, taking another breath. What was life after this?

Matt kissed his ear, his hair, his sideburns, now exposed with the braid. They were pleasant, almost quaint kisses; the type that relatives gave. Mello clenched his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his sweaty palms. 

Why?

Matt stopped kissing him. Mello didn’t know how long he’d been doing it. His arms pulled away from Mello’s shoulders, and he readjusted his position, stretching his legs on either side of Mello’s legs like he was cradling him. 

He put his chin back on Mello’s shoulder. His chin was sharp and dug into Mello’s skin. 

They stayed in place. Mello opened his eyes, uncurling his fists. Little red crescents lined his palms. He felt ashamed.

“Are you okay?” Matt whispered into his ear.

Mello nodded.

“Should I stop?”

Mello gulped, his thick spit burning down his throat. He didn’t want to stop.

He didn’t answer, turning his head to the side. His heart dropped at how close Matt was to him. His thin, angel-hair peach fuzz was only inches from Mello’s lips. Matt didn’t move away, and Mello did what was only natural.

Mello leaned in and kissed him.

The kiss caught him between his jaw and chin. Matt tilted his head, leaning back, and closed his eyes. The sight made Mello ache, sending all of his blood rushing to his knees.

He swallowed again and touched Matt’s knee with his hand, kissing him again. He ran his hand farther up to Matt’s thigh, sweaty and warm as he grew closer to the holes of his trousers, dark and wet like a hardly-traversed cave. 

Matt let him.

Mello looked down, watching his fingers slide under the hole of Matt’s trousers, entering the cave. He heard Matt gasp as his fingers poked the lining of his boxers, glancing up to see Matt bite his lip. Mello dug deeper, burrowing under his boxers until his fingertips brushed Matt’s groin.

Matt’s mouth fell open by his ear, exhaling. 

Mello couldn’t stop himself from shuddering at the sound.

He turned his body, the bed squeaking, until his shoulder pressed into Matt’s naked, blushing chest. Matt’s face was so close to him that their noses were touching. He stroked his two fingers down Matt’s groin again, sweaty underneath his boxers, and watched as Matt let out a quiet _hah_.

The moment became too much. His own desire felt desperate, making him throb to the point that he could no longer feel anything else in his body except for how much he wanted Matt.

He pushed himself against Matt’s lips, against his mouth.

Mello was caught off-guard by how soft Matt’s lips were, how warm they were. So surprised that he let out a warped noise he didn’t recognize as his own. Matt’s teeth clattered against his, unsure, and Mello found it hard to breathe with the heat all around him.

He pulled back, slipping his fingers out of Matt’s trousers painfully, and took off his shirt, tossing it onto the ground. Any moment away from each other became a divot in their intimacy, opening up to hesitation and regret, and Mello couldn’t bear to let it stop.

He pressed his naked chest flush to Matt’s skin, kissing him with all his might, hands splaying themselves eagerly over Matt’s damp rib cage. 

Their mouths didn’t know what to do as they met. Matt opened his mouth up wide as Mello poked his tongue shyly against Matt’s lips, feeling his ribcage expand and hold underneath his hands. 

Matt licked him. His saliva was all over Mello’s lips. They kissed like two overeager dogs, messy and wet, before Mello pushed his hand down Matt’s belly, travelling over his buttons and against his fly, cupping Matt’s radiating groin behind the bulky zipper. 

He couldn’t see past the trousers, but he could feel him. Matt was hard. Just like he was on the day they were on the track, a little mound between his legs. 

Matt tore away from his lips with a sharp, wet noise, rolling his head to the side like a rag-doll.

Mello palmed him again and again, watching Matt grow frustrated. He sat up and grabbed Mello’s hands. For a horrifying moment, Mello thought he’d gone too far, but Matt instead moved his fingers to his buttons, pushing him desperately to free him.

Mello’s fingers fumbled as he unzipped Matt’s trousers, his heart beating out of his chest. The trousers popped open, revealing the waistband of black and green boxers. Patterned with something. Mello didn’t bother to notice. 

He pushed the waistband down further, impatient. Curly dark hairs and Matt’s penis poked out, greeting him eagerly. 

Mello pulled him from his pants, wrapping his fingers around the base. Matt’s curly hairs tickled. His penis felt thick. Mello stroked, and Matt let out a quiet, warm noise from deep inside his diaphragm that sounded like a note straight from Heaven.

“Ah,” Matt breathed, moving his face away from Mello. Turning toward the bedpost, out of Mello’s view. “Ah- _ah…_ ”

Mello’s guts churned, burning. He pushed his nose into Matt’s neck, feeling the salty, damp skin between his jaw and his face. Matt rolled his head further, giving him more room. His hand kept pumping Matt, and he couldn’t stop himself from licking Matt’s salty, warm neck.

Matt made a small noise at the back of his throat, and Mello felt it against his lips. Everything was Matt. Their knees knocked, knobby and weak, and Mello kissed Matt’s neck again, inhaling deeply, his hand fisting Matt as he grew harder in his palm.

Mello kissed up over Matt’s jaw, listening to the way Matt’s breaths hitched and sped up as he moved closer to his ear, where his sweat beaded. Mello pressed his mouth against Matt’s earlobe, fisting Matt tightly between them.

Mello raked his teeth over Matt’s jaw, taking flecks of his dead skin cells with him. He pressed his nose against his hair, about to swallow all of him whole. Matt’s voice was warm and high, quiet, too shy to let go completely, even as his legs twisted over Mello’s sheets. He could feel Matt’s precome, warm as it spilled clear between his fingers, making every jerk wet and messy, the mattress squeaking in unison. 

Matt was delicious. Salty and boyish, and frustratingly shy. Each breath of his was a different blessing, a different miracle; his every fluid leaking out over Mello’s hands a new splash of Holy Water. He wanted to see Matt’s face, but Matt was hiding, and all Mello could see was his throat as he panted, and a blush spreading across his chest, staining up his shoulders like he’d been rubbed with poison ivy.

Matt’s hips stiffened suddenly. He brought his hand to his mouth, biting his knuckle. An action Mello had never, ever seen Matt do before. It was masculine, rough, and it made Mello speed up in desperation, wanting to watch Matt come even if the world ended around them.

Matt’s feet pushed against the sheets, shoving Mello’s textbook to the ground with a heavy thump. Mello’s strokes increased in speed as he kissed Matt’s cheek sloppily, licking up his face like something rabid. He felt Matt’s thighs clench underneath his fist, his hips jerking. 

Matt came with twitches and staccato breaths, his fist holding in most of his noises as semen spilled over Mello’s knuckles and wrists, hot and buttery. Mello didn’t stop even as Matt melted into the bed, removing his fist from his mouth, sagging after being emptied. Mello kept pumping, wanting more of Matt’s semen, more of Matt’s warmth, more of Matt’s…

Matt pushed him off weakly, his chest rising and falling with vicious pants. Mello let go reluctantly, sitting back on his feet as the oaken bed groaned in pity, out of breath, too.

They fell apart, the world spinning to a halt around them. Mello’s hands were covered with Matt’s semen; Matt’s knuckle was flanked with an angry bite mark, sitting over his ring finger like a wedding band. 

In the quiet, Mello heard rain.

Mello looked to his window curiously. It was pouring. They never noticed when it started, when the air started to get so cool. The smell of wet grass was as heavy as the smell of Matt’s sweat, wafting in from the field. Muddy and strong, against the deep velvety green of the lush forests, the last of the summer’s heat evaporating under the deep grey sky.


End file.
